In eight of the past 12 presidential elections, TV networks proclaimed the winner as early as three hours before polls closed in Western states. Did these projections decrease voter turnout?
Join Bill Adams, GW professor of public policy and public administration, for the answer to this quadrennial controversy about how media projections affect voter turnout.
Adams’ expertise stems from research of every presidential election held from 1960 through 2004, which is published in his latest book Election Night News and Voter Turnout: Solving the Projection Puzzle.
Adams used meta-analysis, content analysis, survey research, focus groups, a natural experiment, time-series analysis, and other methods to test the hypothesis that election projections decrease voter turnout.
 Adams concludes that projections do not damage voter turnout and that the real issue is the less tangible one of equity and fairness. Indeed his focus groups in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Seattle, and Portland, confirmed the hostility of Western voters toward early projections and their anger at feeling their votes are devalued by projections.
Bill Adams is a professor in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University. Other books he has authored/edited include Television Coverage of the 1980 Presidential Campaign, Television Coverage of the Middle East, Television Coverage of International Affairs, Television Network News (with Fay Schreibman), and a Rand Corporation monograph, An Assessment of Telephone Survey Methods (with William Lucas). |
